Ed Paschke: Night Sweat, 2003, oil on canvas, 36 by 50 inches. Courtesy Mary Boone Gallery.
Disturbing and unnerving, Ed Paschke’s figurative paintings stand out among the so-called Chicago Imagists who emerged in the 1960s. This fine selection of works from Paschke’s estate ranges from 1969 to 2004, the year of his death at age 65. Sometimes appropriated from news stories, these haunting images often look like composites of video stills. The garish colors, cryptic symbols and pixelated facial features in works such as The Surface (1992) and Matrix (1995) have an esoteric quality, as if referring to some ominous cult. Others, including Night Sweat, showing a masked man wielding an automatic weapon, and With God on Our Side 2 (both 2003), featuring an image of Osama bin Laden, are more explicit in their allusions to urban violence and terrorism.